One can spend a lifetime listening to just "1973" SHOWS

I swear I'd searched, but in any case, the missing older reviews I referred to in the original version of this post (and that a couple other reviewers on this page have also referred to) can be found in a second posting of this same source:

https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-15.sbd.hall.1580.sbeok.shnf

Eyes of the World is really stand out in this show.

In the days of blanks-and-postage, this was my first '73 show. The first piece I ever heard though, was the "You Ain't Woman Enough", as filler on another show that came in the mail. I steered widely as possible from anything country at the time and I thought:
a)WTF? This is the Dead? Really?
b)What a harsh curio!
To me it sounded so unlike them that it scared me away from ever asking for the whole show. So when it eventually got into my collection I was surprised it was such a good show. Granted, overall, it's just a little above average, but the highs are very solid and make up for the average half. Like 5/8/77 it earned its accolades from trading availability, and being the first/only '73 in many collections. In the intervening years, after absorbing a couple dozen more from '73, this show isn't my fave from the year (like 11/14/73, 11/30/73 and five or six others), but it's still solid and worth hearing. This was the first time the Alembic sound system was toured (this isn't the Wall of Sound - that was in '74 with the double mics. The '73 Alembic looked like this). The show is packed with stuff but all the SBDs run fast. Some of the high opinions might be because everybody has always had fast versions and varispeed sweetens reactions (they used to varispeed album cuts when they made 45 singles for radio for this reason, à la "Light My Fire).

First Set. The 1st set is long enough that you can pretend it starts at Row Jimmy and have yrself an A+ set. Many of the songs were performed for the first time the week before, including Loose Lucy, which is rougher the second time around. They're still warming up for Beat it on Down the Line-12. By Looks Like Rain it's gotten sloppy, though that makes it a little edge-of-the-seat (if that's yr thang). Box of Rain isn't quite a trainwreck but very labored and sounds horrible without a -2% pitch correction. Things then totally brighten with a Row Jimmy that's wonderfully uptempo (even after pitch reduction) and much better than the first-ever, the week before (when Billy made it a four-on-the-floor kick). Keith is good, Bobby's good, Donna's good. Jack Straw is a bit sketched but then comes a massive, major turnaround and a sequence that makes the show. China>Rider has beautiful, inventive leads followed by a hot-hot Me & My Uncle-Bottle. Bobby adds incredible fills to Bertha, followed by a stellar Playing, marred only by a short Donnaskreech™. It's much more inspired than 75% of Playin' jams. Bobby's also great on a pat Casey Jones. It would be easy to listen to the first half of the first set and think everybody's crazy, but there's a classic Dead turnaround where the throttle is pushed forward on the machine, to the red-marked X.

Second Set. Unlike the first set, this set is sprinkled with brilliance throughout, starting with one of 73's better versions of Here Comes Sunshine. Bobby should have used this tone more. El Paso smokes and then everything skids on You Ain't Woman Enough. This was the 1st one and must have been confusing in the stalls. It was performed 15 more times until Oct. Is it a good one? Bad One? Who the fuck knows? One time somebody told me this was performed in '73 because Donna sang backup on the original at Muscle Shoals; but now we have the internet and can call shenanigans on that hypothesis. The second They Love Each Other is even better than the first, and then comes a big jam. Together, Dark Star>Eyes traverses 38 minutes, starting in situ and wandering within seconds. It's 13 min of Dark Star before the first lyrics (not uncommon in '73). Maybe not the most notable version of '73 (not any one section stands out) but still good - I like that there's a long Bass solo instead of Drums. Eyes is bouncy and almost as good as the week before (which also went into China Doll). Dig Jer's Strat tone! The rest is average '73 with Sugaree in a rare post-jam slot.

1st Set:  B
2nd Set: B
Overall = 4 Stars

Highlights:
Row Jimmy - 2nd one ever and really works with this tempo
China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider - absolutely soaring
Me & My Uncle- Has bottle lyric, chipper
Bertha - Great interplay
Playing in the Band - Not the longest of '73 but one of the best
Casey Jones - often a throwaway to me; but not this time
Here Comes Sunshine - Lots of good ones in '73 but check Bobby's delicious tone and enjoy
El Paso - sometimes Jer really grabs a piece
They Love Each Other - 2nd one, getting better
Dark Star>Eyes of the World - Mainly the Eyes, which is crazy good

SOURCES: Not only do all of the SBDs run too fast, they speed up and slow down. There are also small wow & flutter artifacts that are magnified when not pitched correctly. I like the hall.1580 best with the following caveats:
*Loose Lucy through Tennessee Jed need -1%
*Looks Like Rain is missing part of the solo - use the dusborne matrix at -2%
*Box of Rain through Casey Jones needs -2% (that's about a half-tone)
*The second set needs -1%

BTW - There's another source that doesn't show up - but is still here (/details/gd1973-02-15.112812.sbd.arf.flac16).

Jack Sabbath - Where it says "This audio is available in streaming format" it means the band has asked that this show be streaming-only. You can still trade for it though.

How do I download this in MP3?

One of my favorite bootlegs ever!

A full review of the show can be found on the Grateful Dead Guide site:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/08/21573-dane-county-coliseum-madison.html

Many thanks to those who make revisiting this show possible. I am just getting into this again. Love the Phil, as noted. This was my first show, and it was wasted on me at the time. I was a sort of a fan, but they were not a hot item in the Chicago suburbs. Grace of God (and Greg G driving us in the Malibu), I ended up at this show. I remember a dreary day, an empty lot, making my way to the front of the stage, and the echo of Jerry's guitar from around the arena. They played many great shows, I suppose, but this one seems like the end of an era to me. Thanks to fmichael for the download tips. Love the Veneta show as well, of course.

This is the place for comments on this amazing show, done 40 years ago. (First saw them in Philadelphia that year, now that I think about it, maybe 40 years ago this week!)

And the March 25, 2011 review of the remarkable clementinescaboose is not to be missed. Here's s sliver:

"Following the 1st verses [of Dark Star], Phil takes a long, great bass solo (one of just many to come in ’73), and during the transition into Eyes of the World Garcia joins in – if you’ve never heard this before, get ready. The two of them briefly and brilliantly intertwine for a stunningly melodic passage that while painfully ephemeral, may just be the most beautiful in the band’s history."

Of note, she alone commented on this show's Playing as a "masterpiece," outdone only by second set's sublime presentation of Wake of the Flood: dumbfounding where it was only the second time "the wall of sound" had been rolled out in public! (And for all my time in this - including seeing them at Dane four years later, in Feb 1977 – I had no idea that anything this good even existed, let alone had avoided commercial release. The only parallel that comes to mind is the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds on 1972-08-27, which the band has gone so far to explicitly place a “best ever” show in the public domain and release as a single mp3 file for instant downloading http://archive.org/details/GD1972-08-27.OldRenaissanceFaireGrounds_full_set And guess what? Dane 1972-02 now comes in mp3 as well, albeit “via M3U.)

But she and others lament the audio quality if this SB-tape. Voila. We now (issued 04-04-2013) have an incredible matrix mix, brought to life - in what at times sound like four distinct channels in my earbuds by dusborne, and listing among the credit:

“---Thank you Dick Latvala for sharing copies of the master reels.
---Thank you Mike Hall for providing the SBD.
---Thank you Sue for sharing your AUD cassettes.
---Thank you Arfarf for transfering and mastering the AUD source. . . .”

http://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-15.124360.mtx.dusborne.flac16

And that’s the thing, the matrix release is every bit as good as Veneta ’72 only because it builds on not only Arfarf magic in breathing clarity into the old SMD http://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-15.112812.sbd.arf.flac16 but then expands the sound in an added dimension with the overlay of an excellent-to-begin-with and wonderfully restored audio tape http://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-15.112812.sbd.arf.flac16. And yet the improvements to the SMD are so great that alone might tempt the copyright owner’s into a commercial release, but a hole here, a hole there – they seem to have run out of tape with ~4 min. remaining in the show – so the audience tape is required and it stays up for streaming.

The other change of note is that the matrix release drops the first track (Jack Straw > Box of Rain) from the Mike Hall version, as some commentators note the fractured track never happened at this show – otherwise why would Jack Straw repeat as Track 10? My guess is that Hall was using cut-and-paste hyperbole to demonstrate the novelty of “the wall,” even though and only week on tour the boys had it down!

To the matrix! http://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-15.124360.mtx.dusborne.flac16

I used to have this show on cassette and it was always my favorite. Having lost my cassette collection many years ago, I have always yearned to hear this one again even though I only knew it was a show from '73. So 20 years later, I give much thanks to archive.org and its awesome members for hosting a site that made it possible to search and reunite this show with my mind body soul again!!!! The Dark Star>Eyes>China Doll jam truly brings me goosebumps and is by far the best version of this trio ever played in my opinion. Peace all.

The only flaw...the Casey Jones cuts.

the cassette tape i have of this show labeled dairy dead sounds better than anything posted on the archive yet. a desert island show for me. argueably the best versions of here comes sunshine and dark star>eyes>china doll ever.

Gosh, I'd love to see some photos of the stage set-up because this is one of most perfectly recorded of the all-time killer shows .... Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock n roll: Mr. Bill Kreutzman. Somehow he managed to tune his tom frxxking perfectly amidst the chaos and here we have the results.

I could easily make the case that is the last of the greatest dead shows ever, except Id have to deal with PNE 73, Tempe 73, Paris 74, and Winterland 10-20-74.

Ask yourself: why, in the middle of nowhere, during the bleakest part of the year???? And then remember that some of the best shows in the Europe 72 tour came immediately after the first shows on the tour. A pattern emerges.

If you listen to the outro to the 'Eyes' closely, you can hear Jerry and Keith fighting to the death, one of the most awesome pure love 'battles'in the history of improvised music. Somehow (LOL) they end up at the end of the road, admiring a China Doll.

But listen closely to Billy. And Bobby.

Clementinescaboose says:

"Though there many have been better Dark Stars in ’73"

I say: name one. Dicks's pick from the Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln comes closest. But it's not nearly as tight as this one, which could be scored for orchestra and still work its magic.

For many years (maybe every year during 2001-2008?), this show (or some version of it which was not that differently mixed from this one, as far as I can tell) was the most downloaded show from the archive. Did the Archive really deep-six all the comments associated with the other file? That's pretty effed up.

Slow audio fits and starts which eventually morph into raging, maniacal GD. Pause. Consider.

Within two times of playing thru the new "wall of sound" sound system (which had been revealed 6 nights earlier at Maples Pavilion -- a show which I attended) the band was quickly beginning to acclimate themselves with the "wall's" nuances.

The clear result is lots of clear and crisp guitars and clear and crisp keyboards and drums that a listener might sense that the band sensed the same. It's a show in picturesque harmony.

An all time high this one.

49 out of 50 stars.

This one’s defiantly near and dear to my heart. Not only is it one of the first shows I ever heard, it is also the first one I ever downloaded, though not from the archive, since it was a bit late for that by the time i discovered it. But this show is also simply one of the best of 1973 and possibly even one of the best Grateful Dead performances of all time.

One thing that amazes me about this show is how potent all the little “first set” type tunes are. The band is just brimming with energy. Brown Eyed Women, Tennessee Jed, Big River, even potential throwaways like Me and My Uncle and Promised Land are played with a ton of conviction. One listen to this breakneck version of Bertha and you’ll hear what I mean!

The Wake of the Flood material even gets some particularly strong treatments. Row Jimmy is beautiful, TLEO will get your butt shaking, and Here Comes Sunshine is especially great – Garcia’s solo is second to none. It is hard to believe that many of these performances are only the second ever!

While Playing in the Band in set one is a masterpiece, the best part of this show is the legendary second set jam of Dark Star>Eyes>China Doll. Though there many have been better Dark Stars in ’73, I can’t think of one with a more compelling pre-verse segment than the hyper-drive jazz jam contained in this one; the first four minutes are just incredible! They are locked in a way I have rarely ever heard elsewhere. Around the five minute mark, things quiet down for a bit into some haunting and introspective space, but pick up again around 9 minutes, Garcia driving another beautiful, jazzy jam and teasing the Dark Star theme for a while before they come back to earth.

Following the 1st verses, Phil takes a long, great bass solo (one of just many to come in ’73), and during the transition into Eyes of the World Garcia joins in – if you’ve never heard this before, get ready. The two of them briefly and brilliantly intertwine for a stunningly melodic passage that while painfully ephemeral, may just be the most beautiful in the band’s history.

The Eyes that follows is epically jammed. The minor key segments are a bit tentative, but the Stronger than Dirt-like theme that ends most pre-hiatus versions is now beginning to surface. Phil explores it first, and then jerry picks up on it, and the jamming gets pretty intense just before the landing into a heartbreaking China Doll.

The band still isn’t out of gas, giving us a great Uncle John’s Band, Sugar Magnolia and One more Saturday Night to close out the set.

The old copy of this show with the 150+ review page (including my old one) has unfortunately disappeared, and we are now left with this Mike Hall version, which I believe is a bit cleaned up, but i honestly haven't given it a thorough listen.

The sound on my copy is crisp and bright, there's very little hiss, but the mix is definitely off, with little bottom end (i.e. not much Phil) and the vocals mixed too high. a better upgrade of this classic show would be very welcome...

2nd show of 1973 and an incredible journey at that. Not as many sound problems as the Roscoe Maples Pavilion show, and, therefore, there is just a much better overall rythm to this entire show that sweeps you along.

Box of Rain (the real version and not the one tacked on at the beginning) is very upbeat and just sounds loud and powerful - everyone was on the same page. Here Comes Sunshine is another example - its not as intricate as some other versions, but there is just a raw power that pervades the tune. I love the 1973 They Love Each Others, where is almost sounds like they are going to play China Cat Sunflower, and this version is a lot of fun.

I didn't think that the middle portion of Dark Star was anything to write home about, but the last two minutes are simply incredible and the band wanders down paths that they don't normally tread. Eyes of the World picks up on this and is just beautiful but then you get to an absolutely stunning China Doll - sometimes you sit there hoping that Jerry will nail the solo on this song and he disappoints - not here - its perfect.

Listen now and then listen again - there is a ton here.

After the opening notes of this DS it becomes something totaly different until they go into the verse @ 12:40. Very melodic and mellow with some of the best ensemble playing the Dead ever performed. The short jam after Phil's bass solo right before the segue into Eyes gives me goose bumps everytime I listen too it. Also My favorite Eyes-> China Doll ever. Sooo laid back and smooth. Sound quality not the best but still very listenable(I'm not as picky as some of freaks).

1973 just being a fantastic year for the dead. Jerry just rules: This is another great show a a must have for the 73 collection

this show is fantastic! one of a kind Dead in the head music to soothe the soul and move dem bones.

the recording is crap, but man these guys are really wailing. Loose Lucy is a personal favorite. Jerry has some good, gritty, down and dirty guitar playing happening throughout.

China/Rider has a well greased transition from one tune to the next, this train is rolling down the track at full speed.

3 stars for the recording
5 for the playin'

...I'd go to '65 and get some Owsley and then go to this show. I'd take the Owsley after getting to the show lest I screw up the settings in the machine.

In some ways, this is my favorite show. There's a raw clarity to it that blows me away. Great playing and singing all around. The Phil zone is unmistakable. Talk about underrated drummers: Bill Kreutzmann! I love the way he accents with the bell of the cymbal; his drumming in Tennessee Jed and Row Jimmy is sublime, as is true throughout this performance.

Keith was such a great pianist, perfect accompaniment. Donna was great in this show as well (not always the case). Jerry and Bobby are geniuses, but anybody reading this already knows that. Row Jimmy (best I've heard) and Playin' in the Band are amazing; incredible Jerry solos.

This show was posted before and I really enjoyed the reviews that were posted with it. This is a very nice clean version. Thanks and enjoy.

...here we have a newly available recording from a classic era, well worth a listen.

Initial listening at low vol on a not-great system (my housemate is home and his head ain't dead) suggests a not great sound balance between instruments and voices but the benefit of which is that the vocals are really clear. (I love Jerry's "lazy" way of singing).

Intro to China CSF is a bit unusual - higher, tighter, quicker (or more notes) than usual, nice to my ear. El Paso is conventional. Eyes into China Doll is beautiful, as usual. Sugaree is ok. Quick comments on some of my personal favorites. Overall, my impression is that many songs are played a bit slower than usual and that Jerry was really feeling the country music side of his experience.

I like it, actually I love it, I love anything from these guys be it from years ago or what they're doing now. I leave it to others to pick and whine (which I hope you won't) and get technical (which I'm sure you will, and that's ok), I'm just absolutely happy to have another new recording of my favorite band forever.

Been on the bus near 40 years, with my son for the last 5. We have tickets for Further in Los Angeles in September 2010 - see you there or somewhere on the road again...